kept up-situations apparently dangerous turning out all right in the end; persons likewise. For the Icelandic art is unrivalled in its power of representing the way in which things happen; the way in which a first impression is modified or refuted by later events. Read, for example, in chapter xii. of Aron's Saga, of his meeting with two strangers, and his ideas about them it is not at all clear what is going to happen; we are kept all along at the same points of view as Aron himself, and see life rolling out before us. The life of Hrafn is one of the most complete, in one sense, of all the thirteenth-century books; a biography, with deepening interest as it goes on, and at the same time its field narrowing to the tragic history of the contentions between Hrafn and his baser enemy, Thorvald Snorrason of Vatzfirth. None of the more strictly historical books have complied so well with the "unities" of prose epic. But besides the main theme there are many incidental beauties, little pictures of fleeting moments, like that of the poor man Amundi, a retainer of Hrafn's, who was one day cutting hay on his grass-patch, and his wife, with the baby at her back, raking after him: when a gang of Thorvald's men came up to get him to join them against Hrafn, and he would not, so they killed him.1 It is all in a dozen lines; it is enough. As I have said, it was not from any special interest in the policy of Gudmund that I chose this subject for my lecture; nor is he the most attractive character in his own story. But it is impossible to refuse him the respect which his countrymen have paid, or the admiration due to his courage and his faith. Speaking on Gudmund's day, I cannot pass over the story of his 1 Hrafns Saga, c. 17; Sturlunga Saga, ii, p. 302. death. He grew old and blind, and his last sickness came upon him; but he would not die in his bed. There was got ready a hurdle strewn with earth, and when death was near they lifted him from his bed and put him there, on the bare mould there was perhaps as much of the ancient Northman as of the Christian saint in this desire of his. The popular regard for Bishop Gudmund was very great, and shown in many ways; perhaps in none more significant than the stories of his dealings with the trolls. Every Northern hero may be called on to take up the task of Thor and go to " hammer the Trolls"; St. Olaf is one of the most famous in this way; and in Iceland Bishop Gudmund had many tasks of this kind. It must not be thought that the "soothfastness" of the thirteenth century, so definite in its account of the shipwreck and other adventures, is prejudiced against ghost-stories. On the contrary, some of the finest passages of terror and wonder are to be found in Sturlunga Saga, which is full of portents. There is the dream of the man in Skagafirth, not long after the death of Kolbein Tumason, which is like the vision of the Fatal Sisters: He thought he came to a great house; and in it there were two women, as if they were rowing, swinging to and fro; all blood-stained, and blood was dripping on them through the skylight; and one of them chanted: 'Row we, row we, a rain of blood! War and Battle, for the fall of men ! Among the miracles of Gudmund, in the earliest life. of him, it is noted how he had great power against 1 I. p. 220; C.P.B. I. p. 360. trolls. Once, when his body was asleep, he appeared far away to a poor man who was being persecuted by a troll-wife. His chief enemy was a horrible vampire thing called Selkolla, an inhuman body with a seal's head, and no end of ugly devices for escaping and returning. Public opinion among the trolls was strongly against him it is a tradition in one part of Iceland that when Bishop Brand died a troll-wife was heard crying the news to her neighbour: "Now is Hola bishop dead." But the other answered: "There is one coming next who is no better, and that is Gudmund.” 1 Gudmund, however, was not extreme with the trolls, whatever he might be with his other opponents. He was once, it is said, going over the little steep holm of Drangey, blessing it and casting out the trolls, when, after they had done their worst, there came a petition from them, in reasonable terms. In his purification of the island, which was carried out very thoroughly, he was let down by a rope over the cliffs to bless them. At one place a shaggy grey arm in a red sleeve came out of the rock with a knife, and cut two strands of his rope; the third strand was hallowed and would not give, and the Bishop hung there. Then a voice from the rock said: "Do no more hallowing, Bishop; the Bad Folk must live somewhere.” The Bishop had himself hauled up, and left that corner as a reservation for trolls, so it is said. 1" Sá kemur aptr sem ekki er betri, og það er hann Gvöndur.” XXX STURLA THE HISTORIAN It is natural, when the task one has to perform carries along with it so much honour and so much responsibility, to begin with a sentence of apology and depreciation. Words of that sort are not always insincere, but there is seldom much good in them. I have been asked by the University of Oxford to give the Romanes Lecture, and in acknowledgment I will take and apply to my own case the words of Dr. Johnson: "It was not for me to bandy civilities with my sovereign.' You will allow me to speak of Lord Curzon, who had promised to give the Romanes Lecture for this year; and you will readily understand that I wish to say only what may be of good omen to remember some of the associations of Balliol and All Souls, and to look forward to the time when Lord Curzon will come to Oxford and fulfil his undertaking. There is no place in the world, I believe, that sends him more sincere good wishes, or takes a deeper interest in his success and in his fame. I have no need to defend my choice of a subject; it is already authorised; the University has published the Sturlunga Saga, edited by Gudbrand Vigfússon, with the help, as he tells us in his preface, of his friend York Powell of Christ Church. This book contains among other things the Icelandic memoirs of Sturla the historian; Sturla's Norwegian history, the life of King Hacon, with the same editor, has been printed by the Master of the Rolls. The study of Icelandic began long ago in Oxford; an Icelandic grammar was printed here in 1689 for Dr. George Hickes, and afterwards included in his magnificent Thesaurus. The history of Iceland often reads like a contradiction and refutation of a number of historical prejudices. It would require only a very slight touch of fancy or of travesty to make it into a kind of Utopian romance, with ideas something like those of William Godwin, or of Shelley. The Norwegian gentry who went out and settled in Iceland were driven there by their love of freedom, their objection to the new monarchy of Harald Fairhair. They did not want any government; they took an entirely new land and made their homes there, and a commonwealth of their own. No man had lived before in Iceland except the few Irish hermits who had wandered there after the fashion of St. Brandan; they soon disappeared, and their presence does nothing to impair the solitude, the utterly natural condition of Iceland when the Norwegians first took it. The colony of Iceland, further, was almost as free from institutions and constraints, in its early days, as any revolutionary philosopher could desire. The king had been left behind in the old country; there was no tribal system, no priestly order, nothing to complicate the business of life. No abstract thinking, no political platforms, no very troublesome religion interfered with the plain positive facts. The Icelanders at first had little to think about except their houses and families; they were not afraid of their gods, and had no exacting |